The Organised Home Challenge

Our house had been built by a builder just to sell. In Australia we call these houses, 'spec' houses. I never would have thought that I would just walk into a house, already built and say "OK, this is it." It is far from my dream house, but it ticked all the boxes of what was required by our family at the time, and it still does.

While the house was well finished off, the yard was finished off in a hurry. Yes it looked good, but it soon became apparent that we would need to put drainage in our back yard. Also the turf (lawn, grass) that had been laid was not suitable for the southern aspect of our back yard. It quickly died off.

Three years on and it has finally happened.

I am ecstatic!!! I know, it's just grass, but I really am ecstatic.

After a week of leaving it to settle, we were able to walk on it. The kids instantly ran about and fell onto the grass, laying spread out, looking up to the sky. I joined them.

"This is perfect grass for daydreaming" Spunky Monkey said, as we lay back on the soft grass watching the clouds. I would have to agree with him.

Our landscaper was a friend of my Mum's, so she turned up with her clippers and work clothes to help with the back-yard blitz.



While I made a batch of jam drops for the workers, the photo above, is what she cleared from our very neglected and overgrown garden. Miss Moo Moo and I carried it all to the front of the house. We also:

• washed all of the fabric covers on our daybed
• scrubbed the mold from the outdoor chairs
• sanded back and re-oiled our wooden outdoor table
• used the high pressure hose to clean the exposed aggregate on the driveway, under the clothes line, on the path down the side of the house and on the tiles of our back deck/patio
• cut back all of the wildly overgrown passsionfruit vine. It is so much happier now.

It looks fantastic. Although there is still a lot of work to be done in the garden. I was hoping to get started this week, but with sweltering heat one day and pouring rain the next, it just didn't happen. Here is our weekend gardening 'to do' list:

• thin the ginger, heliconias and banana trees
• attend to our sick looking citrus trees - prune? fertilize?
• order more topsoil and mulch for the back garden
• purchase and plant ground cover gardenias
• attend to our very sad looking vegetable patch. Pull out, dig over, replant, mulch.
• buy more herbs, lots of herbs.

This will keep us going for a while, as we actually won't be starting this weekend. We have family visiting from far away and I can see a whole lot of 'summer holiday fun' happening around here instead.